Jetdirect not working on 2500CP plotter

[drawlings]

Hi,
This is my first post on this forum. We bought a used HP DesignJet2500CP plotter and can't seem to get the jetdirect card to operate through the company network.

Is there an easy way to see if the card is working? Could I try hooking up a laptop directly thru the card and check matters out that way?

The plotter works OK when connected via the 36-pin Centronics plug.

[Big Al]

First, print out a configuration page and see if the printer can detect the presence of the JetDirect card. Turn the printer off and reseat the JetDirect card three or four times. Run the Config. a second time.

Poke through the maintenance panel and look for I/O or EIO. You have a choice to set up your own IP address or let the system pick one through DHCP. If you have JetAdmin you can do it there too.

What JetDirect card does the printer have?

Did you get a manual with it? If not you can probably print one out from the Internet. A Google search should hook up with a free download.

Al

[drawlings]

I'll try out your recommendations. Meanwhile, here are answers to your questions:
The JetDirect card is a Model J2552-60013
No, I do not have a manual for that but will search for one as you've suggested.

I would love to try connecting my laptop direct just to eliminate networking issues - any thoughts on this?

[drawlings]

OK, I did the service configuration printout and the printer does see the card. It shows that the BNC port is selected but I want to use the RJ8 Ethernet port and need the manual (I suppose) to change the port.

So far I'm not having any luck locating the user manual for the card. Seems that the HP website doesn't have it available.

[Big Al]

I remember only working on one of those printers a long time ago. You have the old style larger NIC and they seldom cause problems but they do go bad. You will not find a manual on the NIC but a book on the printer would help. Have you tried a Cold Reset on the printer?

You certainly could hook a laptop directly to the printer but would need a crossover cable or hook it up through a hub which does the crossover for you. Without the crossover cable you get the two inputs trying to talk to each other instead of the input to the output. On the Laserjet forum the first entry is a Network Printing tutorial which is very good.

If the printer has been on for a while and shows an IP of 198.0.0.198 that means the NIC cannot see the network cable. These old NIC's do not have connectivity lights so no help there. Can you find/borrow another NIC to try? If you have to buy one they are cheap now. If you have no funds available send me a private message and I will send you one.

Al

[drawlings]

Thanks for suggestions:
IP address comes up as 190.180.66.155
SUBNET Mask: 255.255.255.0
NIT is J2552B
Firmware rev is A.08.49

Previous owner had this plotter connected to a Mac. I see that there's a note on the Service Configuration printout saying "APPLETALK STATUS: READY" Do you suppose I need to do something to accomodate my OS Windows XP?

[redcow]

If you have a cable going to the RJ45 port, but the printer is seeing the BNC as active, you probably have a bad JD.
Don't worry about the Appletalk, if you want you can turn it off in Setup. What else does the Config page show about the network?

[drawlings]

Actually I haven't made the crossover cable and hooked up the laptop yet. Hopefully it'll see that port as soon as I do that.

Meanwhile here's some other stuff appearing on the configuration printout. Presumably lots of this will change as soon as I connect the laptop.

MIO configuration
SNMP SET CMTY NAME: NONE
TCP/IP STATUS: READY


NETWORK STATISTICS
UNICAST PACKETS RCVD: 0
TOTAL PACKETS RCVD: 0
BAD PACKETS RCVD: 0
FRAMING ERRORS RCVD: 0
PACKETS TRANSMITTED: 0
UNSENDABLE PACKETS: 0
XMIT COLLISIONS: 0
XMIT LATE COLLISIONS: 0
IPX/SPX STATUS: DISABLED

HOST NAME: NOT SPECIFIED
CONFIG BY: USER SPECIFIED
IP ADDRESS: 190.180.66.155
SUBNET MASK: 255.255.255.0
DEF. GATEWAY: 0.0.0.0
SYSLOG SERVER: NOT SPECIFIED

DLC/LLC STATUS: DISABLED